Double Dutch is an exciting new business which we will be covering as part of our “entrepreneurial adventurers”
I met with Joyce and Raissa, the two sisters who founded Double Dutch and asked them about how they developed their idea
Back in the Netherlands Raissa and I used to make our own sodas and syrups to bring to house parties and friends and family. We found it so much nicer and useful than all other friends just bringing a good bottle of spirit. Over the time making our own mixers became a passion and we became more and more reluctant to all the mainstream/low-quality mixers.
But we felt we were too young – we decided to take a sabbatical year to do a 3-month internship at a corporate bank and travel around the world for the rest of the year, to experience new cultures, flavours and habits. We then just realized that working for a big corporate financial institution wasn’t what we’d like to do and took a big trip round the US and South-East Asia. This trip was absolutely amazing; we discovered so many different new things going from amazing new recipes, food and drinks we’ve never tasted before to the most beautiful nature and freshness of everything around it.
This trip made us think about going it alone
So what were the next steps
We got accepted to do a MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship at UCL .
Arriving in London, making new friends, going out and enjoying British food and drinks, we noticed that the choice of spirits and premium spirits is even bigger than back in the Netherlands and that the choice of mixers is as limited as back home. So we went back to our old hobby, only this time we had experienced a whole new set of flavourse from all over the world
Our new friends really liked the idea about our new mixers, and we decided to write our dissertation about a new type of mixer and did an extensive market research, looking for trends and needs by bartenders but end-consumers as well. Our three big findings were that we needed to create a drink,
- which is all-natural,
- offers unique and exciting flavours than existing mixers and
- is relatively low in sugars and calories.
This was almost exactly what we have been making for all these years in our kitchen!
When we graduated in September 2014 we won the UCL bright ideas awards for most promising start-up. Our university gave us initial funding, a year free office space and mentorship which really enabled us to start commercialising new and innovative flavours and recipes.
Great stuff, so how did you start
Our first challenge was to find a method that is in line with the time and effort that distilleries put in finding their perfectly balanced spirit. And we really wanted to make a mixer that enhances the flavours of higher quality spirits rather than masking it.
So there was a lot of testing?
Oh yes lots of combinations some really delicious flavour combinations and of which some absolutely disgusting, way too sweet! Our idea was to launch Double Dutch end of October 2014, but we needed more time – in the end, bartenders began introducing us to food-pairing techniques which opened a whole new world for us. In the end, food-pairing is the technique we used to create our flavours. With this technique we chemically analysed all the different flavour compounds in each ingredients, we then compared them with over 120 different types of gins, vodkas and a couple of rums and tequilas to make sure the flavours blend really well together.
So now you’ve developed your product what was next for you?
Our next challenge was that, it was very hard to find a supplier who was able to provide us with the highest quality ingredients we needed. We found one and after being super excited we noticed that after 5-6 weeks the complete flavours faded away.
We were basically back to scratch. However getting a lot of mentorship and calling as many people as possible, we found a better supplier.
Then we needed a bottling plant that was able to bottle our small quantities – this caaused more delays so we missed our planned launch before Christmas – we found that most plants would only look at a production run of 50,00 bottles minimim – it was a big headache but we persevered and eventually found a company prepared to test it with our first 6,000 – super pricey for us but at least we could launch
We were ready in February, – it took a week to bottle them and we had to carbonise and label them all by hand! Friends fools and family for that – it took us a week
We now have switched to a bigger bottling plant in Birmingham where we are producing in 50k bottles a time.
So what’s next for Double Dutch
Well we have two drinks at present – pomegranate and basil, and cucumber and melon – next steps are to expand into Europe – mainly Benelux and Spain.
We are also launching a third flavour end of august-beginning of September with a fourth around Christmas.
We will be following Joyce and Raissa on their entrepreneurial adventure, stay tuned to bouvo.online for more as it happens
In fact “If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, and need some advice/support contact us to see how we can help
For more information about Double Dutch contact http://doubledutchdrinks.com/ or moc.sknirdhctudelbuod@ecyoj
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